


Bed of Gratitude

by dragonagemage



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Body Horror, Consensual Mind Control, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Human/Monster Romance, Mild Gore, Mind Manipulation, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, NO actual explicit content but really REALLY weird romance, Other, Partial Mind Control, The Watcher romances the strangely flirty fungus, Weird mind stuff, You Have Been Warned, what else can I tell you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonagemage/pseuds/dragonagemage
Summary: About halfway through, the Watcher realized she would not be leaving the Sanctum with her mind intact. So why not give in to the strangely alluring call of this creature, if the now-silent walls of the Sanctum would forever keep her secret anyway? A hive-mind learns about matters of the heart, and the Watcher realizes she got far more than she bargained for... and that what she gained is far greater than a shameful secret in the dark. After all, stranger things have occurred in the Deadfire... but not many were as strange as this.
Relationships: The Watcher/Llengrath, The Watcher/Luminescent Spore
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Bed of Gratitude

_Llengrath recognizes your song._  
She stands before the creature once more, dripping viscera and other unspeakable things - but the thrashing of Wael's abandoned body has ended, the great fleshy halls quiet and already decaying, even though she'd planted her sword through the center of their consciousness only hours ago.  
Her companions stand by her side, in various states of exhausted and bloodsoaked, and she recognizes their slightly-glassy stares. None of them would be emerging unscathed or unaltered. The majesty of Wael - their horror, their secrets - made sure of that.  
With pity she wished someone felt for her, she sends them to the surface. She'd already forgotten what sunlight looked like, and it's been mere days.  
_Days crawling through the bowels of a still-living titan._  
She tries very hard not to think about that.  


In the end, she'd made a gift out of the titan's remains; ensured this wondrous, impossible creature got a chance to experience freedom.  
Why, she wonders. Were a few strangely sweet words echoing through her mind enough to make her crawl through the bowels of a dead god, to make a gift out of its remains to the voiceless speaker?  
Was she that desperate?  
She tries not to think about that, either.  


Kith are tiresome creatures. Defiant bundles of flesh and bone and spite, much like herself, tangling her always in their games. She wonders, briefly, when she had started to think about her own kind in this way. Was it before or after her descent into the depths of a dead god's flesh? Ultimately, she decides it isn't important.  
What _is_ important is the creature before her - a delicate, sprawling web of luminescent blue; a consciousness spanning miles, perhaps, attentive to her every move and her every breath.  
_Llengrath recognizes your song._  
It is in the walls, suffuses the floor under her feet, the very air she breathes.  
_It is too beautiful to allow any obstruction to impede its growth._  
She stares at the spore, her vision swimming from the lack of sleep, and she wonders if she'd always noticed how beautiful its light is, soft blue in the dark.  
She sways slightly on her feet, but manages to keep her balance - the air here is thick with rot and mold; but she knows she's still herself, still in possession of free will.  
All that Llengrath does is brushing the tendrils of its thoughts gently against her own.  
_Like a lover,_ she thinks, and finds herself surprised by the thought.  
Ultimately, she decides she isn't wrong.  
Perhaps it is the exhaustion talking, or perhaps it is those soft blue lights swaying before her eyes. But she feels safe enough, and bold as well, as she levels her gaze at the spore.  
Llengrath speaks first.  
_"It is a kingly gift you've given us."_  
A brief beat of silence, during which she can observe the slow dance of glowing spores in the dark. She feels like she's underwater. But she _can_ breathe, and she does so, taking a deep breath of the heavy, mold-scented air.  
_"A garden, where we may grow and learn, fertile soil where our roots can dig deep, drink from the wells of knowledge far below; a sanctuary, where we may thrive."_  
Inadvertently, she smiles. It's truly curious, how such an alien creature can weave words better than most of Eora's poets.  
Yet another conundrum of Wael's. By now, she's grown accustomed to their absurdities.  
_"In this home, in this sanctuary, there is room for another. You have protected us, you have saved us, and we admire you - our roots would gladly make room to intertwine with yours, we would gladly share the waters and the soil so that this garden may bloom with the glory of our joined existence, and grow heavy with fruit of all we grow to be so intertwined."_  
Wait.  
She freezes, swaying slightly on her feet, watching the mesmerizing dance of color bloom along the surface of the spore. The muscles of her face are frozen in a rictus grin as the words slowly filter into her exhaustion-clouded mind. When their meaning sinks in, she is glad that she'd sent her companions ahead and remained behind alone - not for what the colony is saying, but for how she reacts to it.  
Unthinking, she extends a hand towards the creature, fingers stopping inches from the glistening, delicate surface awash in now-erratic light.  
A tendril, woven from separate fibers and thick as her arm, meets her halfway, wrapping curiously around her wrist.  
The colony's touch is soft, gentle, searching - she could easily pull her hand out of their grip. The thought of hurting the delicate fibers in any way almost brings tears to her eyes.  
When did she grow so...protective, of this creature?  
Briefly, she wonders if the spores in the air _are_ having an effect, but ultimately she discards the thought.  
Even if they did, their effect would be minuscule, and she finds it hard to mind.  
No, it is much worse, she decides, for all the intense _affection_ she feels...that's all her.  
For a second, she imagines Aloth's stony, disapproving expression, and Serafen's raised eyebrows. She finds it easier to dismiss these images than she'd like to admit.  
Instead, she focuses on the oddly soothing texture of the tendrils - soft, silk-like strands have split from the main appendage, and are now fanning over her skin. She can hardly feel them, and they move half-blindly, half with single-minded determination. Some part of her remembers Maura, and urges her to panic. She extinguishes that part easier than an errant spark.  
She inclines her head, considering.  
"You wish to...know me?"  
_"Yes. We find your song beautiful. We find ourselves trembling at your touch, wanting to spread our blooming vines to caress the furthest reaches of your mind. We wish to... be close to you. We wish to be one."_  
She swallows.  
_"Let our songs join in harmony, let our roots grow together until we cannot tell them apart. Let us drink from the same springs and feed upon the same soil. Let us slumber and share the same dream, and let us wake and share the same life."_  
The Watcher bites her lip, breathes a single, careful breath.  
She feels like she's standing high on the cliffside above troubled waters, again a child daring herself to take the plunge and meet oblivion.  
She's always been a coward...until now.  
She takes a breath - a lungful of cold air, heavy with the scent of rot and a hint of cloying sweetness. And she leaps.  
Well... _steps_ , really - a single step that puts her right in the embrace of the vines, a step that presses her entire body against the pulsing lights of the luminous, slick membrane.  
Where so far there was softness, the connection now strikes her like lighting; her head snaps back and a gasp leaves her lips as her eyes cloud over, as the entire majesty of Llengrath spears into her mind.  
_Clouds wheel overhead, the heavens bright and blinding, and she is a seed buried in rich, fertile loam. Droplets of rain fall around them; heavy and thundering, filling their world, and she feels two souls within the seed. **Hers** , and **theirs** , and now they are one._  
_They are taken, dug up, and they feel shards of the souls forced inside them, dozens of fragmented parts sharp and hurting like broken glass._  
_They grow slowly, spreading across the walls of a fortress, digging their tendrils into the stone, feeling its heartbeat and whispers and the creatures skittering within, frightened voices of the kith, silence of the one who made them what they are._  
_They endure. They endure. They **endure**._  
_They are strong now, gorged on the thousands of pages, gorged on the thousands of souls, fed by the blood and the whispers of the Sanctuary of Secrets, when they feel a soul approach; she is bright, she is bright, she is **bright** , and her song is so beautiful that they feel it echoing in their tendrils, every root of theirs curling to be closer, and they cannot listen for long because her song is overwhelming and deafening in its beauty. They see others trail behind her, dozens of others, some broken and some stark outlines against the grey vibrations, but none so bright as her, none so wanted as her._  
She wakes with a gasp; and the first thing she becomes aware of is the thick tendril extending down her throat - it is choking her, robbing her of breath...no, it is breathing _for_ her, and tears of discomfort haven't finished forming in her eyes before it suddenly retracts; coils holding her body loosen, the colony withdraws.  
_"We are sorry. We did not know whether your body would remember it needs to breathe while we were with you. As long as you were inside us, we breathed for you."_  
She takes a shaky breath, and pain lances through her chest - she looks down to where rich red warmth soaks the front of her armor, notes a dozen punctures, made so delicately that the bleeding all but stopped already.  
_"We kept your heart beating."_  
The colony sounds concerned, even, and she is touched by their worry despite the ache and slickness coating the inside of her throat, despite the dull pain in her chest. She knows they would never hurt her.  
She also knows "inside us" meant in their mind, in the memories they'd share with her. She isn't sure how she knows.  
It is then that she realizes she can feel it - Wael's discarded husk. She can feel the hallways and the tremors in them, the vestiges of the titan's final convulsions and the cooling bile. She realizes she can feel _them_ \- or, rather, _as_ them, like the echoes of a dream after waking that refuse to fade.  
_"You are part of our song, now."_  
She can tell all the emotions from the colony's unspoken words - she can keenly feel the nuance of their pride, their worry, and their affection. They feel all those things for her. And she can clearly feel the soft, warm light inside her own ribcage, a sensation grafted to her soul - her own affection for them, for how can you live out someone's life as twin to their soul without also loving them?  
She understands them now, and understands herself better than she ever did - for she can see herself through their eyes; she can see the savior, her own soul in fragments of grace and gratitude.  
She can see the world with new eyes. And she knows she can never, ever leave them.  
Without thinking, she leans forward - still loosely wrapped in the coils of their tendrils - and presses her lips to the surface of the spore. A ring of flickering, delighted, multicolored light spreads from the point of contact, like ripples on a lake.  
They are delighted to have received a kiss.  
She smiles fondly, running her fingers along the edges and grooves of the soft growth, memorizing the patterns.  
"I will have to go aboveground, Llengrath," she says, her voice barely above a whisper and her tone fond.  
"I've unfinished tasks. But once these things are dealt with, once I've faced Eothas and explained what had transpired here as best I can to my friends..." she runs her fingers over the delicate lacework of tendrils again. "I'll return here. I'll return to you - to us. I'll always return."  
_"We know."_ They reply, the spore shivering under her curious touch. _"And we will wait for your return. We have now shared ourselves with you. Without you, our garden is dim and our song diminished. Without you, there is no use for nourishing water and the fertile soil. We wish to be with you."_  
In return, she smiles - words are of little use now that she can feel every flickering light and searching tendril. Words are of little use with the spores embedded in her flesh and the souls grafted to her own.  
She doesn't think about what she would say once she reemerges into the light of day.  
After all, no one left the Sanctum of Wael without having been shattered and put together wrong.  
It is just that she got to choose the patterns the cracks would follow.  
She could have found far worse things than understanding in the Sanctum's depths, she muses. No matter how hard it may be for others to accept.  



End file.
